The iPhone Fashion Shoot By Lee Morris

A few weeks ago I did a full fashion photo shoot with my iPhone 3gs. I posted a few of the images and asked people to critique them (never exposing that they were shot on my cell phone). I couldn't help but laugh when a few of our readers claimed that these were "the best images I had ever taken." Nobody ever claimed that they were too grainy, too soft, or lacked detail.

So before I say anything else let me start by saying; I created this video to simply show that you should not be limited by your camera. Obviously there was a lot that went into this shoot including a professional model, hair and makeup, a studio, lighting, and a retoucher. We may create another video in the future where we shoot with only natural light but this video is simply about the camera. There are so many photographers who are obsessed with noise, sharpness, color, dynamic range, megapixels, chromatic aberration, moire, distortion, etc. So many photographers get wrapped up in the technical side that they forget how to take compelling images. This video is for them.

So a few months ago I called Olivia Price; "Hey Olivia, would you be willing to let me do a full photoshoot with you but I'm only going to use my iPhone camera." I had worked with Olivia before, and I must have gained her trust because even though she was very busy she agreed to model for me. Luckily, we set up the shoot right before she was scheduled to move to LA to continue her acting career.

Next I called the local high end hair salon in town, Stella Nova. Madison LeCroy and Tiffany Starnes agreed to donate their time and talent to be a part of this shoot.

I then contacted Pratik Naik of Soltice Retouch. Pratiks portfolio is mind blowing and I was thrilled when he agreed to do the skin retouching for the video.

I now had a full team of extremely talented people and I had yet to even test the phone's camera capability in the studio. At this point I was scared that I may be in over my head. What if the iPhone wasn't capable of creating good quality images? A few days before the shoot I called Patrick Hall over to my house to help me test out the camera. I set up a standard square beauty lighting scheme and got Patrick to stand in. I took this shot:

We were both shocked by the quality of the image. Once we uploaded the picture to the web, you couldn't even tell it wasn't shot on a DSLR. I now had the confidence I needed for the upcoming shoot.

The day of the shoot went very well. I tried to be as informative as possible in the video so I won't go into great detail here about how the images were shot. After the shoot I sent the files over to Pratik for initial retouching. Once I got the files back I gave each of the images a "look" using different photoshop techniques and filters. In the video you can see the original image, Pratik's retouching, and then my final editing.

People may claim that the original images don't look that great but I was shooting with the intent of using Photoshop afterwards. If the backdrop paper didn't fill the frame I knew I could easily fix it afterwards. With today's market being what it is I see Photoshop as a necessary tool for every image I make. I am in the business of making money and my clients do not care if I got it perfect in the camera or made it perfect in post, they simply want a perfect image. It's the same process with music. A band could record and entire album in 1 take, but what successful artist does that? Today, everyone records track by track one at a time and use software to combine them all together into a perfect mix.

A quality camera and lens is a fantastic tool to begin with but even the most expensive camera in the world is capable of taking bad pictures. When your clients view your work they aren't thinking, "Wow I don't see any chromatic aberration in this image!" They are simply thinking, "Wow, I can't put my finger on it, but this looks great!" Olivia has one of these images as her profile picture, and it already has a ton of comments like: "G-L-A-M-O-R-OUS", "LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", you are so beautiful!!"... These are your clients; these are the people that will pay you to take an image and they are not pixel peepers. And many of you, who are photographers, even still said these are some of the best pictures I have ever taken. I can't say that I agree with that but I will say they are pretty damn good for a cell phone.

You can view all of the edited images below both as high res raw and edited images here.

Please help support Fstoppers.com by commenting below and joining the conversation on our forum here.

UPDATE: A lot of people have asked us what sort of budget equipment we could have used to create these photos. Here is a list of a few items that would make this possible on a budget:

328 Comments

Point taken, thank you guys.
I enjoy it very much.
Hey Lee, you don't need to defend your position against all the critics, you have not done this video to please anyone.
Be encouraged, many of us are inspired to take a better photos, no more excuses !

I love the video watching how you did the photography. Interestingly when working in a studio with sufficient lighting, the camera f-stop is stopped down to a point where the large lenses don't even matter. Where the 'fancy' cameras with large big lenses really only win in lower / complex lighting situations. I have take great pictures with point and shoot cameras when the lighting is sufficient. In essence, a camera is nothing but a box with a sensor; the light is really what does all the work. Great job, I really enjoyed looking at the pictures and video.

I enjoyed your video until the time you made a complete ass of yourself by putting down the entire Olympus brand. I am not going to get into a rant here but by listening to your comments about Olympus cameras you lost all credibility to me.
I am by no means a "fanboy" of Olympus cameras but I do like them especially their lenses. No, they are not huge full frame cameras but if you get to really know your camera and have the ability to use it to its full potential you can get great photos from it. I guess that you feel you have to put down another camera brand to make yourself look "cool" and attempt to be funny, when in actuality you did just the opposite.
It's too bad that you had to stoop to such tactics because without them you have a great website.
Just my opinion
Eddie

Great idea, in theory, but you defeated your own hypothesis of not needing all of the expensive camera equipment for nice photos, when you used all of the professional lighting equipment, styling and professional retouching! I totally agree with your initial point though. I tell people the same thing all the time. I knew a photographer in college who set out to prove the same point by shooting all of his assignments with a point-and-shoot for a week and came out with some award-winning photos!

Love the video. This is so true. Some so called photographers out there are all about "all gear, no game". You have proven that as long as you know lighting and post processing, you don't need all the gear. Great job! You have inspired me to used my iphone camera more.

LOVE IT!!! I've always said the same, it's not about the camera, it's about the photographer! I hate it when people ask me "What camera do you use?"
Of course I humour them and answer the question, but it is so not about the camera! The best camera in the world would be worse than an iphone if the photographer doesn't know what they're doing.
Again, love this. Thank you.

Beautiful shots! You are an awesome photographer! Still, your point with customers not being pixel-needing; there are a few shots here with so much noise, no magazine would ever buy them. Secondly; you mention you have ready for viewing, RAW-failes... what camera did you get RAW- files from? Certainly not iPhone..? ;o)

Fantastic video and the whole concept/exercise is brilliantly executed. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Reading some of the comments I can't help but feel the 'take home lesson' is getting lost in semantics and minutia.

One question ... I couldn't find it in the comments (forgive me if I've missed it) ... You held up a print towards the end of the video ... I'm curious as to how big you were able to print these images before the quality became an issue?

very well executed, the lighting can be replaced with cheap flood lights while almost everyone is complaining how expensive the lighting was, if you we're to think you can just replace it with a couple of alternatives

I wanted to be a great golfer, so I bought the best, most expensive golf clubs. That "Tiger Guy" is * still * better than me. I see this trend amongst photographers, going latest and greatest with limited success. A great shot has so many more facets to it and certainly this piece proves the value of great lighting, models, make-up, style captured by a professional photographer. If your sitting around with a 5DMII or a D3 and you can't get quality shots like these, it's not the camera. ;&gt;

Really enjoyed this piece, I love Hipstamatic on my iPhone, but will set-up some lights and give this a try for fun.

You must be kidding me. These pictures look awful and to call them fashion. What about them is fashion? Is it because she has clothes on? I don't see it. These pictures look amateurish and cheap. At best they could be use for a high school year book portrait session. What a disgrace to photography. Who ever picked these should be fired. Frank Marshal